Bahaa Helmy Writes: Where Is the Bill on the Union of Occupants of Tourist Units?

Our article last week entitled “The Occupants’ Union in the Grip of the Real Estate Developer” prompted interaction among readers and a number of letters describing the suffering of the owners and occupants of these units and the financial burdens and heavy costs they bear, demanded by the companies that established these villages under the name of maintenance differences or in return for the consumption of basic utilities such as electricity, water, security, public gardens and others.

Among the letters, Mr. Adel speaks of the excesses of the companies that build tourist villages and sell them for huge sums, and then the company collects for its own account, or through an affiliated company, other exaggerated sums from owners and occupants for items of maintenance, security or garden care, guaranteeing the companies rising and sustainable returns and profits that may not be subject to tax, even though the requirements for tourist, hotel or recreational establishments are not met in those villages and their units, which do not resemble the other resorts and tourist villages advertised on the North Coast, for example, and there is no umbrella to protect the owners and occupants of the units from the exploitation and abuse of those companies.

He says in his letter that transferring these villages to occupants’ unions under the authority of the Tourism Development Authority would help raise their efficiency and limit the abuse and exploitation of influence by these companies against the owners and occupants of the units, based on abusive contractual terms that some companies imposed on individuals in return for long instalment plans, without explaining to those contracting with them to buy these units that the future maintenance cost of the unit might exceed its original price.

The importance of addressing this subject lies in what it represents for a large sector of people of modest means who sought to acquire small units in walled residential communities located in tourist areas that suit their incomes, as a breathing space for their families in summer, which grows hotter year after year, and who have become unable to pay the sums the companies impose on them for maintenance, security, services and the sale of utilities, with the steady increase in these costs, and who are exposed to having the water and electricity to their units cut off if they are unable to pay the fees imposed on them for basic utilities, while the companies monopolize management powers and prevent any of the owners from taking part in management or accounting or from seeing the expenses and costs.

As a result, some owners and occupants of units are forced to advertise them for sale against their will.

The truth is that the Council of Ministers made a good effort in studying the issues and problems raised between owners and occupants of units in tourist villages that do not include any hotel or tourist establishments, and ended with a decision approving the draft amendment of the provisions of the Hotel and Tourist Establishments Law by adding a new chapter providing that “unions shall be established for the occupants of tourist housing units built in tourist villages established on land subject to the jurisdiction of the Tourism Development Authority, excluding their hotel part, whatever the date of their establishment, and tourist housing units shall be treated as closed residential communities surrounded by a wall, with the Authority determining the scope of those units in the tourist villages”, which would lift from the shoulders of the owners and occupants of the units the unrealistic burdens, fees and costs imposed on them and protect them from the exploitation of these companies.

The Council of Ministers sent the bill to the House of Representatives in April 2020, but it has not yet been put forward for study in the committees or for discussion.

The question arises: when will the bill be discussed in the House of Representatives? Will the bill pass easily through the hands of the businessmen who are members of the committees of the House of Representatives – who own or manage such companies? Will some try to empty it of its content or drop it from the legislative agenda in the current session? The coming days will reveal where this draft amendment is heading. We are certain that the public interest is above every consideration. To be continued.